West Virginia sends hundreds of National Guard members to Washington at Trump team's request
The move by a nearby state comes as hundreds of District of Columbia National Guard were activated this week to back up local law enforcement in what the Republican administration calls an effort to crack down on crime and homelessness in the District of Columbia.
Gov. Patrick Morrisey, R-W.Va., said in a post Saturday on X that he was deploying '300-400 skilled personnel' from the West Virginia National Guard to support Trump's 'initiative to make D.C. safe and beautiful.'
Morrissey said the step reflects 'our commitment to a strong and secure America.'
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Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Zelenskiy, flanked by Europe, heads to Washington as Trump presses for Russia deal
By Max Hunder KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy and European leaders will meet Donald Trump in Washington on Monday to map out a peace deal amid fears the U.S. president could try to pressure Kyiv into accepting a settlement favourable to Moscow. The European leaders of Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Finland and NATO hope to shore up Zelenskiy at a crucial diplomatic moment in the war and prevent any repetition of the bad-tempered Oval Office encounter between Trump and Ukraine's leader in February. Trump will meet first with Zelenskiy at 1:15 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (1715 GMT) in the Oval Office and then with all the European leaders together in the White House's East Room at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT), the White House said. After rolling out the red carpet for Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, Trump said an agreement should be struck to end the 42-month-long war which has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions. "Russia is a very big power, and they're not," Trump said of Ukraine afterwards. However, Zelenskiy has already all but rejected the outline of Putin's proposals at that meeting, including for Ukraine to give up the rest of its eastern Donetsk region, of which it currently controls a quarter. "We need real negotiations, which means we can start where the front line is now," the Ukrainian leader said in Brussels on Sunday, adding that his country's constitution made it impossible for him to give away territory. More concerning for him is the fact that Trump, who previously favoured Kyiv's proposal for an immediate ceasefire to conduct deeper peace talks, reversed course after the summit and indicated support for Russia's favoured approach of negotiating a comprehensive deal while fighting rumbles on. "I am grateful to the President of the United States for the invitation. We all equally want to end this war swiftly and reliably," Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messaging app after arriving in Washington late on Sunday. "Russia must end this war — the war it started. And I hope that our shared strength with America and with our European friends will compel Russia to real peace." The outline of Putin's proposals, reported by Reuters earlier, appears impossible for Zelenskiy to accept. Ukrainian forces are deeply dug into the Donetsk region, whose towns and hills serve as a crucial defensive zone to stymie Russian attacks. As part of any peace deal, Kyiv wants security guarantees sufficient to deter Russia, which took Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in 2014 and launched a full invasion in 2022, from attacking again. Fearing that they would be shut out of the conversation after a summit to which they were not invited, European leaders held a call with Zelenskiy on Sunday to align on a common strategy for the meeting with Trump on Monday. The presence of six allies to back Zelenskiy may alleviate painful memories of Zelenskiy's last Oval Office visit. "It's important for the Europeans to be there: (Trump) respects them, he behaves differently in their presence," Oleksandr Merezhko, a Ukrainian lawmaker from Zelenskiy's ruling party, told Reuters. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking to CBS, dismissed the idea that the European leaders were coming to Washington to protect Zelenskiy. "They're not coming here tomorrow to keep Zelenskiy from being bullied. They're coming here tomorrow because we've been working with the Europeans," he said. "We invited them to come." Relations between Kyiv and Washington, once extremely close, have been rocky since Trump took office in January. However, Ukraine's pressing need for U.S. weapons and intelligence sharing, some of which have no viable alternative, has forced Zelenskiy and his allies on the continent to appease Trump, even when his statements appear contradictory to their objectives. On the battlefield Russia has been slowly grinding forward, pressing home its advantages in men and firepower. Putin says he is ready to continue fighting until his military objectives are achieved. Ukraine hopes that the changing technological nature of the war and its ability to inflict massive casualties on Moscow will allow it to hold out, supported by European financial and military aid even if relations with Washington collapse. Solve the daily Crossword
New York Times
18 minutes ago
- New York Times
All Russia Needs to Do Is Go Home
Vladimir Putin looked like he loved every minute of it. Mr. Putin, the president of Russia, the man who has proclaimed that my country shouldn't exist — that it's a historical mistake, to be fixed by Russian soldiers — was welcomed effusively to Alaska by the president of the United States. Mr. Putin exited his plane and diplomatic isolation and walked a red carpet like an honored guest. His smile was triumphant. Was it confidence that he was going to get away with everything he's done? Or was it the anticipation of getting what he wanted: a subjugated Ukraine and a weakened trans-Atlantic alliance? Perhaps it was both. Americans may have cringed, but for Ukrainians, watching Mr. Putin smirk and laugh was revolting. The meeting between Mr. Putin and President Trump on Friday was a stark reminder of a simple truth: that the real barrier, the only real barrier, between Mr. Trump and peace in Ukraine (and his coveted Nobel Prize) is Mr. Putin. Russia could end the war in Ukraine at any moment by stopping its attacks and withdrawing its forces. By simply going home. Mr. Putin could end it with a phone call. Mr. Putin — and sometimes, Mr. Trump — have tried to frame Ukraine as the obstacle to peace. But let's think about how Ukraine could end this war on terms that Mr. Putin would accept: by giving him everything. By relinquishing territory that tens of thousands have died defending, forgoing the prospect of ever joining NATO or the European Union, agreeing not to maintain a military strong enough to defend itself and installing a puppet government pliant to Mr. Putin. By agreeing, in effect, to cease to exist. To a Ukrainian — and surely to most people — the idea of handing anything, never mind everything, to an invader that has brought death and destruction to a peaceful country, seems exactly backward. A recent Gallup poll showed that 69 percent of Ukrainians want the war to end in a negotiation, and soon. That majority, up from 22 percent in 2022, the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion, has been widely interpreted as showing that Ukrainians are now willing to compromise. But it's more complicated than that. Other polls that have more precisely parsed the question of ending the war — Do Ukrainians want to cede territories to Russia to end the war? — have shown a majority still saying 'no.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
18 minutes ago
- New York Times
Trump's Plans for A.I. Might Hit a Wall. Thank Europe.
President Trump wants to unleash American A.I. companies on the world. For the United States to win the unfolding A.I. arms race, his logic goes, tech companies should be unfettered by regulations and free to develop artificial intelligence technology as they generally see fit. He is convinced that the benefits of American supremacy in this technology outweigh the risks of ungoverned A.I., which experts warn could include heightened surveillance, disinformation or even an existential threat to humanity. This conviction is at the heart of the administration's recently unveiled A.I. Action Plan, which looks to roll back red tape and onerous regulations that it says paralyze A.I. development. But Mr. Trump can't single-handedly protect American A.I. companies from regulation. Washington may be able to eliminate the rules of the road at home, but it can't do so for the rest of the world. If American companies want to operate in international markets, they must follow the rules of those markets. That means that the European Union, an enormous market that is committed to regulating A.I., could well thwart Mr. Trump's techno-optimist vision of a world dominated by self-regulated, free-market U.S. companies. In the past, the E.U.'s digital regulations have resonated well beyond the continent, with technology companies extending those rules across their global operations in a phenomenon I have termed the Brussels Effect. Companies like Apple and Microsoft now broadly use the E.U.'s General Data Protection Regulation, which gives users more control over their data, as their global privacy standard in part because it is too costly and cumbersome for them to follow different privacy policies in each market. Other governments also often look to E.U. rules when drafting their own laws regulating the tech sector. The same phenomenon could at least partly hold for A.I. technology. Over the past decade, the E.U. has put in place a number of regulations aimed at balancing A.I. innovation, transparency and accountability. Most important is the A.I. Act, the world's first comprehensive and binding artificial intelligence law, which entered into force in August 2024. The act establishes guardrails against the possible risks of artificial intelligence, such as the loss of privacy, discrimination, disinformation and A.I. systems that could endanger human life if left unchecked. This law, for instance, restricts the use of facial recognition technology for surveillance and limits the use of potentially biased artificial intelligence for hiring or credit decisions. American developers looking to get access to the European market will have to comply with these rules and others. Some companies are already pushing back. Meta has accused the E.U. of overreach and even sought the Trump administration's help in opposing Europe's regulatory ambitions. But other companies, such as OpenAI, Google and Microsoft, are signing on to Europe's A.I. code of practice. These tech giants see an opportunity: Playing nice with the European Union could help build trust among users, pre-empt other regulatory challenges and streamline their policies around the world. Individual American states looking to govern A.I., too, could use E.U. rules as a template when writing their own bills, as California did when developing its privacy laws. By holding its ground, Europe can steer global A.I. development toward models that protect fundamental rights, ensure fairness and don't undermine democracy. Standing firm would also boost Europe's tech sector by creating fairer competition between foreign and European A.I. firms, which have to abide by E.U. laws. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
